This symposium is occasioned by the Tom Burrows exhibition at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Since the 1960s, Burrows’ work has reflected on the connections between the spaces of political and artistic/material practice. His home and sculptural works on the Maplewood Mudflats, his documentation of squatting communities in Africa, Asia and Europe, and his ongoing production of abstract works in resin and porcelain share an attention to the ways in which socially meaningful forms emerge out of engagement with, and intervention in, spatial and material processes. The symposium will take up some issues suggested by such attention in two panels.

Join us as we welcome the UBC Contemporary Players to the Belkin Art Gallery for a concert inspired by Tom Burrows. Led by Directors Corey Hamm and Paolo Bortolussi, this graduate and undergraduate student ensemble from the UBC School of Music will animate the Gallery for an afternoon program celebrating themes from the exhibition.

Join leading UBC scholars, artists, curators and critics in a series of midday conversations. We invite two prominent, disciplinarily distinct voices into the Gallery to discuss productive intersections of their own work and the current exhibition, followed by a discussion that includes the audience. In this series, guests will address Tom Burrows, an exhibition of works by the Vancouver/Hornby Island artist from his early career to the present.

Join us as we welcome the UBC Contemporary Players to the Belkin Art Gallery for a concert inspired by Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993. Led by Directors Corey Hamm and Paolo Bortolussi, this graduate and undergraduate student ensemble from the UBC School of Music will animate the Gallery for an afternoon program celebrating themes from the exhibition.

Join leading UBC scholars, artists, curators and critics in a series of midday conversations. We invite two prominent, disciplinarily distinct voices into the Gallery to discuss productive intersections of their own work and the current exhibition, followed by a discussion that includes the audience. In this series, guests will address Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993, an exhibition of 227 black-and-white photographs taken by the artist during the decade that he resided in New York City, his first time away from China. The New York photographs, presented in chronological order, form a layering of narratives that reflect a time when the artist was settling into a city and culture that was completely new to him.

In conjunction with The Cinémathèque, we are pleased to present Alison Klayman’s award-winning documentary film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, which examines the complex intersection of artistic practice and social activism as seen through the life and art of the artist. Please join us immediately before the film for an introduction by Carol Lu, artistic director and chief curator of OCAT Shenzhen. A critic and curator based in Beijing, Lu is a Contributing Editor at Frieze Magazine. She was a jury member for the 2011 Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion Award, a co-artistic director for the 2012 Gwangju Biennial and writes frequently for international art journals and magazines including e-flux journal, The Exhibitionist, Yishu, Tate Etc. and Contemporary. Her curatorial work includes Unscrolled: Reframing Tradition in Chinese Art (with Diana Freundl), opening November 15th at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Please join us at the Belkin Art Gallery in conversation with UBC professors Hedy Law (School of Music), Michelle LeBaron (Faculty of Law) and Henry Yu (Department of History) to better understand recent protests in the streets of Hong Kong. What contexts inform this pro-democracy activism? How might we make sense of our relationship to the demonstrations and its resonance here on campus and in Vancouver?

Join Tyler Kinnear for a guided soundwalk of the outdoor art works on the campus of the University of British Columbia. During this excursion we will give our ears priority, paying attention to the sounds around us as well as to our own listening. In what ways do we interpret the sonic environment? In what ways do we contribute to its composition? Soundwalk is a collaboration of the Belkin Art Gallery and School of Music at UBC, and is part of the Vancouver New Music Festival’s Alternative Energies – Sound and Sustainability. Taking place throughout September and October 2014, Alternative Energies offers a series of events that explore the intersection of art and sustainability presented by arts, educational and community organizations in Vancouver.

Please join us at the Western Front for a panel discussion between six French curators and three local participants on the occasion of their research visit to Vancouver. Alexandra Baudelot (Co-Director, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers), Marie Cozette (Director, Centre d’art contemporain – La Synagogue de Delme), Laurence Gateau (Director, FRAC des Pays de La Loire), Marta Ponsa (Head, Department of Artistic Projects, Jeu de Paume), Claire Le Restif (Director, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry-le Crédac), and Vincent Verlé (Director, Centre d’art Bastille-Grenoble) will discuss their programs, institutions and research. France-Vancouver: A Curatorial Conversation is hosted by the Western Front and co-presented by the Consulat Général de France, Vancouver, the Contemporary Art Gallery, SFU Galleries and the UBC Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

Every full-time undergraduate student at UBC is invited to participate in an essay contest that considers the question, What is Public Art? Essays must be no longer than 1,000 words in length and submitted to the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery no later than 4:00 pm on Friday, April 11, 2014. Submissions must be made with a separate page indicating: 1) full name, 2) student number, 3) email, 4) telephone. Contestants must be full-time students registered in an undergraduate program at the University of British Columbia.

Join us as we welcome the UBC Contemporary Players to the Belkin Art Gallery for a concert inspired by The Spaces Between exhibition. Led by Directors Corey Hamm and Paolo Bortolussi, this graduate and undergraduate student ensemble from the UBC School of Music will animate the Gallery for an afternoon program celebrating contemporary Cuba and its capital city.

Join leading UBC scholars, artists, curators and critics in a series of noon hour conversations. We invite two prominent, disciplinarily distinct voices into the Gallery to discuss productive intersections of their own work and the current exhibition, followed by a discussion that includes the audience.

Join us for a concert by the UBC Contemporary Players at the Belkin Art Gallery. Ensemble Directors Corey Hamm and Paolo Bortolussi present a program that celebrates the Belkin Art Gallery’s current exhibition Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools (September 6-December 1, 2013), this symposium features lectures by a distinguished international panel of critics, artists, and curators. Traumatic Histories, Artistic Practice and Working from the Margins will convene around questions arising from the exhibition, including curatorial issues, the role of artistic practice in reconciliation (along with a fundamental investigation of the concept of reconciliation) and a broader theoretical discussion around modernity and indigeneity. The symposium is made possible with assistance from the UBC Curatorial Lecture Series, supported by the Faculty of Arts and the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory.

Western Front LUXE Theatre, 303 East 8th Avenue, Vancouver

The University of British Columbia’s Critical and Curatorial Studies Program and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery co-present a public lecture by Guillaume Désanges as part of the Curatorial Lecture Series. At the Western Front’s LUXE Theatre, Désanges will speak about his artistic and curatorial practice. Désanges and Frédéric Cherboeuf’s new play, Marcel Duchamp will be presented as part of LIVE Biennale on Sunday, September 22 at SFU Woodwards. Guillaume Désanges’ lecture at the Western Front is a co-presentation with the LIVE Biennale with the generous support of the Consulat général de France à Vancouver.